ERINN Innovation recently attended Aquaculture Europe 2025 in Valencia, Spain (22nd–25th September) connecting with the international aquaculture community and highlighting its active role in supporting research, innovation and collaboration across the sector. As always, attending this event was a real highlight for our team and it was great to see so many familiar faces and have the opportunity to forge new connections.
The EATiP Innovation Forum
A major highlight of the week was our involvement in the EATiP Innovation Forum on 24th September, which featured five presentations from AQUAEXCEL3.0 partners. The session drew a full audience of researchers, policymakers and industry representatives, and was followed by an energetic networking event that encouraged new exchanges and collaborations. We also contributed to the AQUAEXCEL3.0 brokerage activities during the event, facilitating connections between research infrastructures and potential users.
Connecting With The European Aquaculture Industry
Throughout the conference, the ERINN Innovation team met with partners and collaborators from across Europe, including EATiP and its Mirror Platforms (MiPs), EMBRC, BIM, NTNU, HCMR, and the University of Ghent, among many others. These interactions strengthened existing partnerships and helped identify new opportunities to bridge research, policy and industry in sustainable aquaculture.
The Importance of Marine Projects
At the ERINN Innovation booth, visitors explored materials from several key Horizon Europe and H2020 projects, including AQUAEXCEL3.0, Cure4Aqua, MARBLES, NETTAG+, and BlueRemediomics. The displays showcased the breadth of our engagement in aquaculture innovation, from infrastructure access and biodiversity discovery to disease prevention and data integration. Among the exhibits were posters for AQUAEXCEL3.0 and Cure4Aqua, an example of the NETTAG+ floating gear tag, and synthetic fish tissue samples produced through Cure4Aqua’s work on improved diagnostic and health-monitoring methods.
AQUAEXCEL3.0 continues to play a leading role in advancing access to world-class aquaculture research facilities across Europe, while Cure4Aqua is developing innovative tools for early disease detection, non-antibiotic treatments and improved fish welfare. Together with projects such as NETTAG+ and BlueRemediomics, these initiatives demonstrate the growing impact of collaborative research in shaping a resilient and responsible aquaculture sector.
Reflecting on his time at Aquaculture Europe 2025, ERINN Innovation Senior Knowledge Transfer Officer, Keegan Porter, said:
“Events like Aquaculture Europe 2025 remind us how much progress depends on collaboration…Research, particularly in the aquaculture sector, is never done in vacuum, and talking with attendees at our booth and around the expo really underscored the importance of everyone, from knowledge generation to policy and industry implementation, working together to ensure that research outcomes are properly translated into practical advances for the aquaculture sector.”
We look forward to building on the connections made in Valencia and continuing to support the translation of European research into real-world solutions for sustainable aquaculture.
